The three lovely people with whom I live.

After all the talk about how rainy Paris is and how cold it can be, even in the summer, and how I really oughtent pack too many summer clothes because it's cooler in France, and so on and so forth, I'm actually pretty pleased that Paris hasn't lived up to my expectations. The weather, both here and in Tours, has been remarkably hot and sunny. The humidity, which was so oppressive in Tours, is non-existant in the city, and Sarah and I feel therefore compelled to go out each night and enjoy the weather while it's still good.

Sarah, by the way, is another student in the Sweet Briar program that I'm studying with, and we are living in the same appartement with a lovely couple. The Bauzins raised three sons here, and they are now in the habit of importing students to fill the empty nest. Sarah and I are lucky students numbers 35 and 36. It's actually very helpful that they've hosted so many students, and for two reasons: 1) they anticipate all the problems and questions we'll have, and 2) they're used to attempting adult conversations with basic French. I say attempting because I'm really more attempting conversation than actually having it. Between ourselves, Sarah and I understand each other very well, but with native French speakers, all the anglophone phrase and idiom constructions that I'm used to make comprehension much more difficult. But Christine and Olivier are experienced in this sort of thing, and it certainly helps that they're both teachers. Christine is an elementary schoolteacher, and Olivier is an architect currently teaching at the local university.

Sarah is a student at Hood College, and her family lives about an hour from her school in Maryland. She studies French and German, and her linguistic fascination has recently extended to Russian. Her purpose in coming here is the same as mine: both to cement her language skills and to absorb the culture. It's great that we're so like-minded, because we speak only French together and enjoy going out to see the city. Plus we compliment each other in many ways. For example, she prefers smaller bedrooms, and I was glad that she left me the more spacious room. And she hates babysitting, which means that I got the babysitting job the woman upstairs is offering. We each have our own friends here too, but it's nice to have someone I can spend time with living a room away. It brings back the friendly community of the dorm situation but without the gross public showers.

I will write more about all the adventures we've had together a bit later, once I've figured out how to post photos in this Blog.